Women Preachers

We needed to give a presentation today in preaching class, about some historical preacher. I spoke about Catherine Mumford Booth, who with her husband founded the Salvation Army in England in 1864. Let me introduce you:

Don't let the prim bonnet fool you: Mrs. Booth was both strong-minded and eloquent, and brooked no nonsense from those who would stand between a person and her call to proclaim the Gospel. She responded to one such critic with a 32-page pamphlet-- which is still worth reading, because we are still hearing the same weak arguments. You can find it here.

There are also a couple books of her sermons still around, if you dig a little. Look for small tomes called Aggressive Christianity and Godliness. Some of her homily gems:

"We are epistles, whatever sort of doctrine our lives teach. We cannot help ourselves, for while we profess to be the Lord’s, we are living epistles, known and read of all men."

"Opposition! It is a bad sign for the Christianity of this day that it provokes so little opposition. If there were no other evidence of it being wrong, I should know it from that. When the Church and the world can jog along comfortably together, you may be sure there is something wrong."

"There is no improving the future without disturbing the present, and the difficulty is to get people to be willing to be disturbed!"

Good stuff.